Bangladesh executes war criminal Mir Quasem

Dhaka, Sep 3 (IANS) Bangladesh on Saturday executed another top Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali for war crimes committed during the country’s Liberation War in 1971.

“Ali has been hanged to death at 10.30 p.m. (local time),” the superintendent of the Kashimpur Jail said, reported Xinhua.

Bangladesh on Saturday evening ordered execution of death row war criminal Quasem as he chose not to seek presidential pardon after losing the final legal battle.

Earlier in evening, his family was asked to meet Quasem one last time at the Kashimpur Central Jail.

In a Facebook post, Quasem’s daughter Sumaiya Rabeya said her father was a soft-hearted person who would cry every time he made a speech.

She said the family was going to meet him, probably for the last time, and had come to terms with his impending execution.

This would only make him a martyr, something that he had struggled for during his entire life, the Dhaka Tribune quoted Sumaiya as saying.

Quasem’s wife Khandaker Ayesha Khatun was asked by the prison authorities to meet her husband on Saturday afternoon.

The 63-year-old Jamaat-e-Islami leader and business tycoon’s atrocities during the 1971 Liberation War in Chittagong earned him the nickname “Bangali Khan”.

On Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court upheld his death penalty for war crimes, Quasem had sought time to decide his next course of action.

He was sentenced to death in 2014 by the country’s specially constituted International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), for the atrocities he committed during the 1971 Liberation War as an Al-Badr commander.His last review petition was rejected by the Appellate Division of the apex court on Tuesday.